Ten Narnia Resources

My oldest daughter just finished hearing The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time. After we finished The Last Battle, Kara asked wistfully, “Daddy, are there any more Narnia books?” I had to confirm what she already knew: there are only seven Narnia books.

But she’s already looking forward to reading them again and again and again.

We utilized ten resources to enjoy Narnia, and I recommend them all:

1. The Unabridged Books

These are essential. All other resources merely supplement them.

It is pure pleasure to read these aloud to your children.

I chose to get a boxed set in hardcover.

It’s also available in softcover.

Those sets have the same simple illustrations by Pauline Baynes sprinkled throughout them that I recall seeing when reading this set as a child.

This one-volume set (which I think is the same as this one) is large but very nice. It includes the original illustrations by Pauline Baynes, but they are hand-colored instead of black and white.

You can view thirteen of Pauline Baynes’s color illustrations and seven maps at the bottom of this page.

2. Graphic Novels

I’m surprised that there aren’t more books like these. I wish there were seven and not just two of them.

Although these books horrify purists, I like them. I used them to introduce these two stories to Kara, and they helped draw her into the world of Narnia. She loves these books (though now she loves the unabridged books more). She loves pictures paired with stories; they engage her and stimulate her imagination.

The first book of the seven books that we read is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and we read the graphic novel first:

When we got to the part where the white witch kills Aslan, Kara started sobbing with grief.

When we got to the next chapter and read the title, “The Spell Is Broken,” she cheerfully remarked through her tears, “That’s good news!”

When I asked her if Aslan reminded her of anyone (and this is during her first time ever hearing the story), without blinking she replied, “Jesus.”

The day after finishing the book, I asked her, “So what do you think of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?” She replied, “Well, I don’t like the witch, but I like the lion and the wardrobe.”

3. Focus on the Family Radio Theatre

It’s abridged. The unabridged audio is about 31 hours, and this is about 22 hours. Among other things, this abridged version removes the few instances of objectionable language (see resource #9 below: “Some Caveats”).

Douglas Gresham, one of C. S. Lewis’s two step-sons, briefly introduces and concludes each book.

They focus on intense scenes, especially violent battle scenes. We skipped the really intense scenes and watched other intense scenes at 4x speed or higher because they are too intense for a little girl.

They drastically revise the storyline of the books.

They gut the books of their core message and turn them into feel-good messages about believing in yourself and having faith (I always ask, “Faith in what or whom?!”). For example, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ends with Carrie Underwood singing “There’s a Place for Us.” Is the message of the book really that “we can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe” and that “exactly who we are is just enough”? Incredible. They turn a book steeped in Christian themes into narcissistic self-esteemism.

Here is how I would rate the movies as stand alone ventures, if C. S. Lewis had never existed, and producers had not been laboring under the burden of finding someone who understood the books. Of course, we shouldn’t be too hard on them. They only have many millions of dollars. How could they possibly find somebody who understands the books? Give them a break.

7. Theater

It just so happened that a nearby play of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe coincided with our reading the Narnia books.

It was Kara’s second play, and she loved the experience. But as with the film adaptations, she disliked how much artistic license the play took with the storyline. (I agree.)

8. Pretending

We (mostly my dear wife!) have spent dozens of hours play-acting with Kara as all sorts of Narnia characters. Kara lives in an imaginary world, and she constantly reenacts scenes and improvises new ones using the characters from the stories (and sometimes conflates imaginary worlds: Narnia meets Winnie the Pooh!).

It can get exhausting living in this pretend world, but it’s worth it. It’s good for her on so many levels (e.g., see Nurture Shock, ch. 8).

We took our time enjoying the seven books, spending about two to three weeks in each one. We read each at least three times before moving on to the next one:

I read the unabridged version aloud once.

We listened to the abridged version by Focus on the Family Radio Theatre at least once.

We listened to the unabridged version at least once.

9. Some Caveats

This is not to say that the story is without flaws. In fact, it has two defects that sharply limit its usefulness. A discussion of the Chronicles would not be complete without mentioning these defects.

First, Lewis sometimes puts profane language in the mouths of his characters [e.g., taking the Lord’s name in vain and Uncle Andrew’s repeated line in The Magician’s Nephew]. To be fair, Lewis would probably not have regarded these uses as profanity. Most likely he would have argued that the language was not gratuitous and, therefore, was not speaking in vain of holy things. This is not convincing, however. A certain number of oaths serve no apparent purpose other than to add color to the story. They do cross the line into profanity, which is especially disappointing in stories that were written for children. Even though these occasions are rare, once is too often.

Second, some of Lewis’s theology was aberrant, and one or two of his quirks do show up in these stories. Probably the most serious is Lewis’s inclusivism. In the final story (The Last Battle) a young worshipper of the demon Tash is admitted into the “true Narnia”—Lewis’s version of heaven. Lewis uses Aslan to explain that whatever worship was offered sincerely to Tash was really offered to Aslan. Such episodes reflect one of the errors of Lewis’s theology, namely, that all sincere people can be received by God, even if they have not received the truth of Christianity. This is not a minor error.

The error is compounded precisely because the fantastic presentation makes it seem appealing and palatable. The flaw is magnified further by being offered to children who cannot be expected to recognize it for what it is. Lewis’s story has the power to capture the child’s imagination and to render it sympathetic to inclusivism before the child ever develops the capacity to think critically about the issue. This is a serious matter.

Kevin DeYoung’s “Cautions for Mere Christianity” (January 28, 2011) highlights “two significant problems” with Mere Christianity, and the second in particular appears in the Narnia series:

Lewis rejects a penal substitutionary atonement.

Lewis “believed in what we might roughly call ‘anonymous Christians.’ That is, people may be saved through Christ without putting explicit faith in Christ.”

10. Douglas Wilson’s Book on Narnia

I listened to this audiobook both before and after reading the series with my daughter, and then I read it and marked it up. Wilson draws insightful lessons from the Narnia stories.

I was going to share some excerpts, but I highlighted far too many pithy, shrewd observations to fit here.

Relatively few books are worth reading a second or third time. This is one of them.

Some trivia: My favorite character (other than Aslan, of course) is Puddleglum. As Wilson says, “Puddleglum is a character who has a comically dour and gloomy exterior, but he turns out to be quite useful, fiercely loyal, and suspicious about the world in all the right ways” (p. 91).

Share:

Related

Comments

Great list of resources. The single most transformative book I have ever read about the Chronicles is Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia. I’m glad to see it on your supplementary list; I would’ve ranked it (its abridged version). In addition to being fascinating, Ward’s books show the gospel-exalting value of classical mythology.

Thanks for all the work on this one, Andy. I’m reading the full versions to my girls over dinner each nigh–one chapter a night. They also enjoy the (first) motion picture. I look forward to working through all the books with them and letting them read them for themselves when they’re able.

One caveat I would add about the “Radio Theatre” versions is that in the early dramas, Aslan hams it up quite a lot. Because the rest of the dramatization is so stellar, it’s easy to ignore when actor David Suchet is being much more subtle; yet especially in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, that constantly yawing voice (“Woaaaahhhhhwwwwww! Cliiiiimbbb onnnnnn,”) is a bother.

One would wish, too, that the narrator had stuck to the original text during his description of the end battle in Prince Caspian. Peter did not merely “finish him off.” Peter “walloped off his head.” ;-)

Finally, about the claim that Lewis meant to include something like universalism in the ending of The Last Battle — more than one way exists to interpret the Emeth Element. Lewis himself, though squishy on why Christ died and wistfully open to God saving pagans despite themselves (the false belief of “anonymous Christians”) was nevertheless no universalist. He specifically affirmed Hell was real, based on mostly Biblical reasons, in The Problem of Pain, and in The Great Divorce (which unlike “Narnia” is specifically said to be an allegory of this life) specifically condemned universalism.

I realize your overview did not bring up “universalism” by name, yet plenty of “Lewis was a universalist” slanders make the rounds among well-meaning Christians. Lewis is definitely over-venerated in evangelical circles, and his errors left unquestioned, but this one is often over-criticized and exaggerated.

About Emeth specifically, it’s helpful to note that:

1) “Narnia” is not allegory and its “salvation” rules are different.

2) Emeth never reaches all the way to Heaven, but arrives at an imaginary “in-between” state that is unique to Narnia’s spiritual “rules.”

3) Emeth is filled with remorse at meeting Aslan, and still does not believe himself worthy to be there (which could be a picture of conscious regeneration even in an in-between state).

4) At the world’s end, other Narnian creatures are clearly shown to turn from Aslan in disgust, and disappear forever into Aslan’s long, dark shadow.

My guess is that Lewis wanted to ask what-if about his “anonymous Christian” or “noble pagan” wishful thinking, and found a safe way to do this in his fantasy world with alternate “salvation” rules. The beauty of fiction whose author was intending to glorify God is that, despite flaws, readers can fill in the gaps and give alternate interpretations. God’s truth is sneaky, even when Christian (or even secular!) authors are missing it.

Andy, I know this has been a fun journey for you (and Kara) and will be for your other daughters. Being somewhat of a novice with Lewis and his writings, I found Roar! A Christian Family Guide to the Chronicles of Narnia by Heather and David Kopp to be helpful in answering some of my more basic questions about the series.

When I was stationed in the Republic of Korea for a year (back in the pre-internet era). My wife and I wrote letters to each other every day, but limited finances meant that we could only speak on the phone (briefly) twice a month. Too few opportunities for my three young children to hear their father’s voice. So,before leaving I recorded several of the Chronicles, that my kids listened to as they drifted off to sleep after family prayers.

If I’d recorded them in our digital age, I’d still have copies . . . but I’m pleased that the kids loved them enough to literally wear them out. (They kept listening to the recording long after I returned from Asia.)

I know no-one’s posted here for over a year, so this is a long shot, but do you have any tips on how to deal with the implicit inclusivism when reading these books with small children? It seems a shame to ditch the whole series because of one objectionable passage, but somewhat irresponsible to allow it to pass without comment. Especially since it’s all written so appealingly I rather fear I risk coming off as a bit of a grump. Any advice?